Author: Press Room

Amy Acton during a COVID-19 press conference in 2020. Photo: Courtesy of The Ohio Channel On Tuesday, former Ohio Department of Health Director Amy Acton announced a run for governor to replace term-limited Gov. Mike DeWine (R).  She is the first Democrat to enter the 2026 race. In a statement announcing her candidacy, Acton shared, “I’m a doctor, not a politician.” “I solve problems by bringing people together regardless of party to find solutions. So unlike most of our leaders, I know the answer to moving our state forward isn’t giving politicians more power, it’s giving people more freedom.” She…

The Prompt is a weekly rundown of AI’s buzziest startups, biggest breakthroughs, and business deals. To get it in your inbox, subscribe here. Happy new year and welcome back to The Prompt, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the move will allow the company to simplify its policies and restore “free expression on our platforms.”dpa/picture alliance via Getty Images Earlier today, Meta announced that it plans to “restore free speech” on its platforms by gutting independent fact checkers, who have been responsible for moderating content and reviewing misinformation, and replacing them with an X-style community notes model, where users provide additional…

Charlie Robinson is the host of the  Macroaggressions Podcast. He was the author of Hypocrazy: Surviving In A World Of Cultural Double Standards in 2021 and The Octopus of Global Control in 2017When Robinson took over the Activist Post and Natural Blaze sites on January 1 this year, he offered an online version of Hypocrazy which is 259 pages, as shown below. It’s a must-read read for anyone who would like to make sense of the last four crazy years and much more.Critical Importance of Thinking Different NowThe Apple logo used to encourage us to “Think Different” – to take…

Ann Altman, the sister of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, has filed a lawsuit alleging he regularly sexually abused her for several years starting in their childhood. The Guardian reports that Sam Altman, the prominent tech entrepreneur and CEO of ChatGPT developer OpenAI, has been accused of sexual abuse by his sister Ann Altman in a lawsuit filed on January 6 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. The lawsuit alleges that the abuse began when Ann was just three years old and Sam was 12, with the last instance occurring when he was an adult but his…

The populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has begun to surge while establishment parties continue to slide as Germans prepare to head to the polls for a federal election in February. A survey from YouGov found that the anti-mass migration AfD party has risen by two points over the previous poll to 21 per cent support, putting the party firmly in second place ahead of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD), which fell by two points to just 16 per cent, Welt reports. The neo-liberal Christian Democratic Union (CDU), formerly led by ex-Chancellor Angela Merkel, dropped by a point over…

Fireworks that were set off on New Year’s Eve and caused a small fire in calm conditions may have smoldered and caused the wildfire currently burning in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, after being accelerated by high winds. University of Southern California Associate Professor of Biological Science Andrew Hires, who lives near the fire, posted photos and videos on X, and said that fireworks appeared to have been the likeliest cause of the blaze: Authorities had not confirmed the cause of the blaze as of this writing. However, there is a persistent problem of fireworks in the Palisades, where people from other…

Woolworths has submitted its plans to New Zealand’s competition regulator to buy a clutch of assets from Australia-based food manufacturer Beak & Johnston.Australia’s largest grocer, a customer of Beak & Johnston, has already made an application with its domestic anti-trust body.The deal does not cover all of Beak & Johnston’s business. According to the filings in both Australia and New Zealand, the company’s Greenacre unit is not part of the proposed acquisition.Beak & Johnston Greenacre supplies sauces, soups, slow-cooked meats and other chilled ready meals.Just Food has contacted Woolworths and Beak & Johnston to specify which assets will sit outside…

President-elect Donald Trump has invited Jair Bolsonaro to his upcoming inauguration, but the former Brazilian president may not be able to attend — he surrendered his passport to authorities while under investigation for allegedly helping plan and participate in a 2023 coup attempt in an effort to remain in office. “My lawyer, Dr. Paulo Bueno, has already forwarded a request to Minister Alexandre de Moraes for me to have my passport returned so that I can attend this honorable and important historical event,” Bolsonaro wrote on X in Portuguese Wednesday, the two-year anniversary of the Jan. 8 coup attempt. A…

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — The Biden administration has been in talks with the Taliban to exchange Americans detained in Afghanistan for Afghans in U.S. custody, a senior Taliban leader with direct knowledge of the negotiations told NBC News on Wednesday.The Taliban leader, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the issue publicly, said the two sides had been negotiating for the past two years but had so far failed to reach a deal.He said the Taliban had demanded three Afghan nationals including Muhammad Rahim, the only Afghan prisoner left at Guantánamo Bay, a detention…

More than 1,400 firefighters have been deployed in California to deal with the “unprecedented” wildfires in and around Los Angeles, according to the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom. Tens of thousands of California residents have been placed under evacuation orders as firefighters work on three separate major wildfires – the Palisades, the Eaton and the Hurst fires – which between them cover nearly 4,500 acres of land.We would like to hear from people in the US about the impact of the wildfires. Have you been affected by the recent fires? How are you coping? We would like to hear about your…